Rating: 
Summary: Bravo to the Producer, Director, and Actors!
Review: It's not always easy to take an extremely well written story and turn it into a screen adaptation that carries its own weight. However, White Oleander does just that. For those who have not read the book, you'll find this an engrossing, well-acted, directed and produced film. For those of us who read the book when it first came out, and then waited relentlessly for the movie, you'll not be disappointed. Kominsky, Pfeiffer, and Lowman do a fantastic believable job without pandering. There are many of the book's renderings that have been left out or touched upon only lightly. In many cases, this would ruin the movie for me. However, in this instance, I believe Kominsky took the right path in bringing this to the screen. Many of the trials that Astrid suffered/lived through in the book would not have transferred over well into film had Kominsy tried to capture every nuance. For those who want their movies to be exactly like the books (usually I'm in this category), I would recommend that they not see the movie/video until many months have passed since reading the book. The movie touched me deeply and made me cry. Of course, it cannot and should not be expected to plumb the depths of one's soul as deeply and thoroughly as the book. I have yet to find an excellent book better rendered in film. If anyone know of one, please advise. So, in closing, I'd forwarn the "readers" not to be too hard on a book that cannot reach the same level of purity in film, as few can. So, enjoy each for what it brings. The movie is outstanding and certainly not just a "chick flick" but a plucky story of survival. I highly recommend the film--then by all means read the book!!!!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Enchanting, intreging, and outstanding!
Review: The Movie is a beautifully crafted film, with wonderful actors; script; screen play; score; etc. It as the Title suggests. I, at first, was thinking this film was going to be like any other film I had seen this whole year; dull, and not worth my & dollars, but I was delightfully wrong.
I was loving every minute of the movie, throught it's twist and turns, and wonderful surprises.
I have never read the book, but seeing this movies makes want to go and buy it. It's a wonderful movie, and definetly worth every penny.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I begged my friend to go see White Oleander with me. When he finally gave in, I felt bad for making him go with me. I had high hopes for the movie because the book is my all-time favorite. The story has a way of pulling you in and making you care about all of the charactes. The movie, however, left me bored and wanting my money back. A few words of advice: Don't waste your time or money on this horrible adaptation of a GREAT book!
Rating: 
Summary: In the Bedroom, redux
Review: White Oleander (Peter Kosminsky, 2002) When a veteran director of awful TV movies helms the moving adaptation of an Oprah novel, the average viewer should probably be prepared for the worst. And from that point of view, this film is quite the pleasant surprise. It certainly beats the pants off other painfully bad Oprah-novel adaptations like The Deep End of the Ocean. Kosminsky (whose only other big-screen appearance was an ill-thought-out but well-cast adaptation of Wuthering Heights a decade before this'remember that description, as it will become relevant here in a few minutes) and scriptwriter Mary Agnes Donoghue (Beaches, Deceived) take Janet Fitch's dysfunction-junction novel and pare out a good deal of the character development, leaving lots of action and a tale that centers more fully on the character of Astrid Magnusson (Alison Lohman, here doing her best Karen Carpenter impersonation). Problem is, while it's nice to have a strong central character, what they got rid of was in some places central to understanding what was going on in the film (for example, the sequence of events that land Astrid's mother Ingrid [Michelle Pfeiffer] in prison at the beginning of the film, which makes no sense to folks who haven't read the book). Balancing out the plot holes and jerking around is a set of exceptionally well-drawn characters. Lohman and Pfeiffer both carry their roles quite well, and are backed up with an excellent supporting cast. Special mention should go to Renee Zellweger, who turns in the best job to date in her career, and Patrick Fugit (all gorwn up and not recognizable as the same annoying kid who got such a welcome comeuppance in the godawful TV movie Marabunta! a few years ago), Astrid's best pal and on-again off-again lover (whoops, they cut tat bit out of the movie. too'). Cole Hauser also turns in a fine performance, as he usually does; his role is cut down to the absolute basics, and is one of the places where the movie would have benefited from being a good half-hour or so longer. All in all, it's a reprise of last year's In the Bedroom; some fine performances of some well-written characters in the midst of a script that never quite comes together. ***
Rating:
Summary: Not a bad timewaster, but only a simple soap opera
Review: This is a story about a teenager shifted around to foster homes. It should have pulled at my emotions. Instead, it kept me intrigued at the rather interesting characters she met along the way and the clothes they all wore. This was all told against the bright California sunshine. I looked for some dark moments. But, in spite of the tragedies that were written into the script, those dark moments just weren't there. Michelle Pfeiffer is cast as a possessive, yet loving mother. Problem is she's doing 35 years in jail for murdering a boyfriend. Alison Lehman is cast as her daughter. She's all blonde and bright eyed and innocent and a pleasure to look at. It was a good role and will probably further her acting career but she either needs more talent or a better director to make me feel the emotions that the part called for. Renee Zellenger, looking uglier than I could ever imagine, was cast a foster mother with emotional needs of her own. And Robin Wright Penn, looking trashy, was a foster mother who was jealous of her boyfriend's interest in the young girl. The acting was uniformly just all right and never got beyond the surface. It wasn't boring, however, and the film held my interest throughout. Not a bad timewaster, but not all films are destined for greatness. As there was nothing I can find strikingly wrong with it, except my personal taste. I therefore the mildest lukewarm recommendation I can. Some people will surely like it.
Rating:
Summary: Memorable Performances in a Highly Dramatized Movie
Review: White Oleander, featuring Michelle Pfeiffer and Alison Lohman, is the movie based on the book by Janet Fitch. Viewers of the Oprah Winfrey daytime television show and readers will recall that this book was one of Oprah's book club selections. Now this compelling and disturbing book has been brought to the silver screen in what many viewers will agree was an intriguing and well-crafted movie. And rarely, if ever in my opinion, has a movie been so finely done or as faithful to the book as was done in this movie. In addition the cast was well chosen and the performances are creatively superb, handling a most difficult subject. Michelle Pfeiffer, in the lead role, plays Ingrid Magnusson, a single parent and artist who is raising her adolescent daughter Astrid played by Alison Lohman. Ingrid is an incredibly selfish woman with a Bohemian lifestyle who treats Astrid more like a friend than her child. While Ingrid's life is dictated by her passions and whims, Astrid is merely a bystander to the lifestyle Ingrid dictates for them. When she is angered by the rejection of her current lover and while Astrid sits in their car, Ingrid poisons her lover with the inner juice of a white oleander plant ultimately killing this man. When Ingrid is arrested by the police, Astrid is removed from their home by social services and becomes a ward of the state. Now the focus of the movie shifts from Astrid as Ingrid's daughter and work in progress to Astrid, a child who will become much too familiar with the foster care system in Southern California. Unfortunately for Astrid, the foster homes she stays in are less than happy situations for her and she also must contend with Ingrid's views of her foster mothers as she goes from home to home, learning more about the seamier side of life than any child should have to learn at this pivotal time in her life. And all the while Astrid remains loyal to Ingrid as she continues to be subjected to her when she visits Ingrid in prison. This is a movie populated mainly by an all female cast. Michelle Pfeiffer plays Ingrid with a mixture of anger and compassion about her situation and Astrid's circumstances. And both Renee Zellwegger and Robin Wright Penn shine as two very different types of foster mothers who greatly influence Astrid's life. But if the movie belongs to one actor it is Astrid played by Alison Lohman who shines as the confused young woman forced to face life as an adult way before her time. And the last scene as Astrid becomes an artist in her own right and creates valises filled with the faces and objects of her life which remains with the viewer long after the movie ends. I found this to be an excellent movie especially since I read the book. The director and other associates are to be commended for tastefully presenting a difficult subject to the audience in such a fine manner. One is left with a feeling of hope that Astrid, despite her early difficulties will succeed as an adult.
Rating:
Summary: Triumph
Review: This is one of very few examples of how a great book can be made into an equally good movie. Screenplay is brilliant, story line is very closely kept with the book, which is always a must contrary to popular beliefs. Directing is excellent, casting even better. Watching these actors playing these characters almost made me forget that I was watching the movie and not the real life. Watching Astrid shad her innocence and step into womanhood through hardship and deception was as magnificent to watch as it was painful. And should I even speak of Michelle Pfeifer? She has an Oscar written all over her for that performance. Her glares alone deserve a recognition. Lets not forget excellent performances by Renee Zelwegger and Robin Wright Penn. For all those (man) who think this is a chick flick (much like I thought before I watched it) it is not. This is a story of love, deception, transformation and letting go. A story about how all of us have to find our own path in life regardless of obstacles. All filmmakers should take notes, because this is how you tell a story. Bravo
Rating:
Summary: Much food for thought
Review: Kudos must go to screenwriter Mary Agnes Donogue for transforming a very interior book into an intriguing film. Without ever pandering to the lowest common denominator, director Kosminsky has used cast and screenplay to great advantage in this fascinating and complex tale. Pfeiffer is in top form as a beautiful and brilliant narcissicistic woman capable of murder. And Alison Lohman is splendid as the daughter, Astrid, who has inherited her mother's beauty, talent and intelligence (but not her self-absorption) along with (however reluctantly) the more rational of her mother's life lessons. It is only with the greatest reluctance that children give up on their parents, even the worst of them. And it is particularly difficult to give up on someone who is beautiful; the child is forever searching for an inner beauty that will match up with the exterior. At the same time, Astrid is, via the foster care system, being offered to one new mother after another. Robin Wright Penn and Renee Zellweger both turn in solid, if uninspired, performances as two of them. Saving herself from potentially explosive situations by resorting to long-ago given advice from her mother, Astrid grows both into herself and away from her mother--ultimately demanding truth in exchange for the promise to tell lies in court that might see Pfeiffer released from prison. All the characters are fully developed, with the exception of Noah Wyle who is pretty much wasted in this film; he's got a fairly stock role with not much room for improvement--it's a part almost anyone could have played. Young Patrick Fugit fares better as Ingrid's friend and, later, as her partner. He manages to invest his role with an aura of hard-won wisdom, acceptance, and warmth. What is striking is the cinematography and an absence of filters except in certain key scenes. Zellweger, in particular, is shot in harsh, flat light that makes her appear visibly lacking, flawed somehow, as she is in fact. Pfeiffer is lit in an almost ethereal fashion that highlights the beauty that is so key to the narrative structure. Beautiful people can get away with all kinds of bad behavior, even with madness, but not, in this case, with murder. Her performance has a stillness that is unsettling--without doubt her best in a very long time. She and Lohman are entirely believable as mother and daughter and while Pfeiffer's character isn't as fully defined as it was in the novel, there is enough subtext there for the viewer to feel her arrogant, malign power. This is a very worthwhile film--primarily for its investigation of the always treacherous terrain of mother-daughter relationships.
Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Only part of the flower
Review: If you haven't read the book, you may very well like the movie. It remains an MTV video of a very fine, albeit very self-conscious book: all fits and spurts, without getting into the characters' motivations, flitting from circumstance to new scene, without developing a rapport with an audience. Other than the actress playing Astrid, the protagonist, and an intereting character turn by Robin Wright Penn, the acting was wooden, esepcailly that of Michelle Pfiffer, who lacks the strength to show the love/hate disfuntional relationship her character forges with her daughter, who is shuffled from home to home, searching for a sense of normalcy and seeing only chaos. Read the book OR see the movie. I closed the book thinking of all the characters and flaws and heartaches, realtionships,and their needs and motivations; a fine study of the dysfunction in a person's life taken to extremes. I left the movie thinking it was better than watching the Angels lose.
Rating:
Summary: terrific acting, cast, and story
Review: Being a guy, I was somewhat reluctant to see "White Oleander," half-expecting an indoctrination into the Ya-Ya Sisterhood against my will. However, my apprehensions were completely mistaken, as this was one of the best movies I had seen in a while. Cinematic neophyte Alison Lohman gives an understated yet compelling debut as Astrid, a young woman who finds her independence through a most harrowing adolescent journey into adulthood. There have been many B-movies out there about mother-daughter tensions, a trying fact of life (or so I've been told), but this story does it beautifully. I have never seen Michele Pfeifer so diabolically cast than in her role as Ingrid, Astrid's mother, a hard-edged artist who, for most of the film, spends her time in prison. With the same self-confident smile that caught men's eyes in her role as Catwoman (it's a guy thing), Pfeifer instead sends a few shivers down your spine with this character. Robin Wright Penn puts forth a great performance as Starr, a born-again Christian, alcoholic, and former stripper; and Renee Zellweger's role as an unsuccessful Hollywood actress with a fragile self-esteem is also notable. In the end, we have our protagonist effectively reduced from a princess to an urchin (to borrow a line from The New York Times' review). I was hoping for a bit more closure in the movie's end, but it was just as well. "White Oleander" is a movie not to be missed.
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